Four from Frankfurt
By PHILIP HOPE-WALLACE At all events this visit won some cheers and was more of a success than one such visit which this old-established opera company undertook under Goering's patronage, who sent them to Zagreb at a time when that Yugoslav city was full of refugees from Nazi persecution. These, in a splendid revenge, secretly bought up; and destroyed, all the first-night tickets. The curtain went up on a house empty save for the Gentian ambassador, his wife and the pro- gramme girls. Se non P vero . . . but I was told it by a famous theatre man in Frankfurt in 1938, and I think it is true.
I first experienced Frankfurt opera round in the late 1920s when I was more impressionable; Franz Volker as Manrico raised the roof and the hair on my scalp; and a soprano called Maria Fischer sang in a way which caused the muscles of her neck to expand like those of a sergeant-major during passages of stress. It was all very exciting and when your standards were those of the Carl Rosa it seemed miraculous. But I expect there were ups and downs even then. The great thing was that opera in Frank- furt as in Cologne or DOsseldorf was a going
concern, part of the town's amenities. And are we moving that way at all in Britain even yet? Only in London. Between our two opera houses we do get quite a lot, even if it's very little for our size, by comparison with what a small city such as Frankfurt achieves.
Of the four operas brought over only Lortzing's Zar und Zimmermann was a novelty, not done here I think since the Oxford Opera Club did it in 1930 or thereabouts, with the cathedral tenor and all that clog dancing. This light opera about Peter the Great incognito in Saardam's shipyards has its moments. It is Donizetti-for-Germans, or Rossini out of Weber, and the tunes are well turned and often catchy. But it did not look well (possibly the fault of our lighting) and at many times we were forcibly reminded that we were listening (as we were) to provincial homespun quite a few chalks below the Wells's own standard. Only Manfred Jungwirth as the burgomaster really touched the proper level.
But there was nothing provincial (in that silly pejorative sense in which I ought not to have used the word) about the opening Salome which served Richard Strauss very well. The produc- tion was simple and effective (in spite of freak- ish costumes), brought the right elements for- ward at the right time and had the focus in the right place. The big, solid, well-tuned German orchestra sent up rather undifferentiated waves of sound; at least in the circle one felt uncom- fortably assailed by the sound under Von Matacic's baton. The Herod (Gerald McKee), the Narraboth (David Thaw)—two Americans-- the Baptist (Gerd Feldhoff, a strong presence with a dark, rather shouty baritone) were all good and Maria Kouba assumed the taxing name part unflinchingly, though surrendering the more energetic parts of The Dance to a ballerina. Of course, there is oriental tushery in the score, yet the one-act drama grips
when it is done like this in a small theatre.
The Fidelio, too, had its excitements. The conducting was rather plodding and uninspired, but Anja Silja, for all her crude vocalisation, made an uncommonly plausible wife in boy's disguise and I was struck as ever in German Fidelios by the way that the splendid stage- diction makes the spoken scenes not a let-down after the flights of song, but a complement into which one passes without the usual sense of opera comique dislocation. Feldhoff's Pizarro was impressive, also Theo Adam's Rocco. Sylvia Stahlmann and David Thaw were Marzelline and Jacquino, two more highly accomplished Americans. The former indeed took on Constanze in The Seraglio and came through it with flying colours thanks to a good method and a musicianly ear. This was a charming Mozart production in a pretty rococo set by Toni Businger, unfussed and innocent of that terrible supplementa'ry romping which often disfigures this naïve Rescue story (compare the sublimities of Fidelio!). Miss Stahlmann was matched by a high-spirited Blondchen in Renate Holm. James Harper and David•Thaw were' the rescuers and Georg Stern the duped Osmin. As at Glyndebourne we sat listening to Ameri- cans talking to each other in German and some among us, I fear, not understanding. (In the Lortzing the 'English ambassador' talked Ger- man with an American accent!) But at least a complete visit like this (which I must be care- ful not to call a visitation) gives some idea of the collective style of the company, which I salute; though I don't think our Sadler's Wells need hang its head in shame.
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